How to Pick the Right Boarding School

Having a great education sets the foundation for success. Statistics show that those who receive a great education, on average do much better in just about all measures of life.

There are many approaches parents take to ensure their children receive a great education. Some choose home schooling which allows them to control every aspect of their child’s education from curriculum to the amount of hours spent every day on school work. Some parents choose to put their kids in a formalized learning environment controlled by educators who have a track record for getting great results.

Both of these approaches can work well depending upon the child. But what is certain, is that children do better academically when they have few distractions and are literally living in an environment built to support learning.

This is perhaps why boarding schools consistently graduate the world’s top students. They offer a completely planned out education strategy and a setting that is proven to create high performing students.

But like everything in life, not all boarding schools are created equal and parents interested in sending a child to a boarding school needs to study their options and have a checklist for deciding on the right school. Here are some of the items to include on your checklist:

Educational Credentials

At the heart of any great school is its academic track record, so you will want to examine the education credentials of each boarding school you are considering. It should reveal a school that has top tier teaching curriculum, highly credentialed teachers and a large percentage of the student body that is excelling in classes.

For those who are not excelling in their classes, there should a support system in place that gets to the bottom of why and corrects these deficiencies in a very systematic and deliberate manner.

Further you should find that students are being accepted in high numbers at the top universities and there should be a number of alumni that have gone on to have standout careers in their chosen fields. All of this information should be made available by the school either as an introduction to their approach and accomplishments in this area or upon your request.

Recognized Leaders in Their Specialty Areas

Many boarding schools specialize in a particular subject or subjects. There are schools that are renowned for graduating future politicians and others that excel at creating future business leaders. There are boarding schools with performing arts programs that are the industry standard, and others who graduate top scientists. Make sure if you are interviewing a school that has a particular specialty area, that they have a great reputation for graduating successful professionals in that industry.

A Large Number of Students are Boarders

Practically every boarding school also has students that are day students, meaning those that go home in the afternoons and are not on the school campus during the weekends. So you want to make sure that there is a large enough amount of students that actually stay at the school to ensure that your child will have company during the evenings and weekends. Being far away from home with no one around can be extremely taxing and disorienting on young people. Without lots of other kids boarding, there will be fewer activities available for them to partake in, and fewer friends for them to make. So ask the school about the number of students who are boarders.

Appropriate Values and Traditions

Many boarding schools have been around for decades and some for hundreds of years. During their time in existence they develop an ethos or set of characteristics that come to define the school. Some schools are regarded as very tough and stringent regarding academics, others have a strong record of compassion, while others have a reputation for developing creative skills in students. You should understand this ethos and decide if it fits with what you want for your child.

Focus on Extra-curricular Activities

When your child is not in class or studying there will be considerable free time. Boarding schools try and fill this time with productive activities. You need to be sure that there are enough of the type of activities that will appeal to your child, going on all year long at the school.

Most boarding schools have excellent facilities for music, sports and other types of activities on campus. The school should offer all sorts of group activities built around these facilities. This means singing and music groups, sports teams, drama productions, debate groups, and others, and students should be strongly encouraged to join.

There is also an opportunity to work within the community around the school as a volunteer. These types of activities give students the chance to meet new people and make new friends and develop character. They also build student’s character and school record, which will be looked on positively by universities.

Deciding where to send your child to school is a big challenge. When you add the need to ensure they are also cared for well while they learn, it complicates things even more. Do your homework and you will learn information that will help you make a good choice.

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It’s going to get easier with time, it’s not going to be quick, but you’ll get there. Losing a loved one is something that can’t be compared and will forever leave a mark in your life.

The first advice you can take from this article is that you must actively seek to heal, to slowly recover from the pain that loss brought by bringing closure to this transition.

The best way to do this is by remembering those treasured times you spent with your loved one and replace the pain and grief with those happy and warm moments.

Once you’ve begun this process, you might want to gift a memorial to embody the love you have for this special person.

We might not be able to help with much more in your emotional distress, but we can aid you choose a nice granite memorial to provide closure to this cycle and leave an everlasting memory that will forever carry your love and memorialize the life of that person.

Why Choose Granite?

Choosing this material will guarantee that, with proper care, your memorial will outlive you, everyone in else in your family, and several generations to come, holding the memories and the particular message you engraved to withstand the test of time, perpetually immortalizing the memories you shared with your loved one.

Types of Granite Memorials

Although the traditional granite memorial is known as a headstone, there are several different kinds of memorials available that you can place in a cemetery.

However, keep in mind that depending on the local cemetery or churchyard there might be a specific set of rules and guidelines on what sort of memorial you can install. Making headstones the standard and commonly accepted choice amongst different locations.

If the regulations permit it, you can also look for a kerbed, a lawn memorial, and traditional vases, that will exalt the beauty of the granite and spruce up the dedicatory.

Kerbed memorials and lawn memorials cover the whole grave and allow you to install larger decorations, flower vases, and even creating a small personal garden on the grave.

Always look for a stonemason’s previous work to see if you genuinely like his craft since these investments are filled with emotions and care, and each detail should carry be considered to create the most exceptional commemoration possible.

Engravings

The message that you wish to etch in the memorial is something very personal and should be chosen carefully, as it will convey your feelings and memories.

Depending on the size and work of the stonemason you can engrave words, designs and even pictures into the memorial, so you have a wide range of options available.

From the common message of remembrance from its beloved, a lovely poem written especially for the occasion, or a happy image of the deceased, these details can be arranged by a professional craftsman.

Immortalizing the Live of a Person

The most important aspect about choosing a nice granite memorial is that you try to forget the pain of loss and instead celebrate the life and great memories you shared with that person, engraving them into the granite and creating a soulful dedicatory that will forever speak about the love you shared.

Remember that it will slowly get better, that stinging feeling of pain and loss is something that will gradually wane, and the first step to recovery is giving a proper closure to the cycle of life. What a better way of commemorating that love and those beautiful memories than with a nice granite memorial that will forever evoke those great moments.

If you have issues with your mobility, for whatever reason, it makes a great deal of sense to ensure that your home is designed in such a way that you can get around far more easily. For some this may mean changing home to a bungalow, for everyone else it means making modifications to their existing homes to ensure that you don’t have too much trouble when you are carrying out daily tasks at home. One such installation which can bring with it many benefits, at least for those who live in a house with more than one floor, is a stairlift. These fantastic gadgets involve having metal brackets placed on your stairs, along with a strong rail along the wall, attached to this rail is a seat which you simply sit down on, and then using a remote control you will be automatically transported up and down the stairs.

If you aren’t sure whether or not this is something that you need, here are just some of the many benefits which you will enjoy after installing one in your home.

Independence

One thing which mobility issues can almost guarantee is a diminished level of independence and you will find yourself calling on others for help in a number of situations. Stairlifts can help you maintain your independence in the home, by allowing you to head up and down stairs with ease, and without the help of anyone else.

Injury Risk

Because of the physical restrictions which limited mobility can bring, there is often a risk of injury from falling or tripping. When it comes to the stairs, falling here can come with some terrible consequences because of the height from which you may fall. You can completely remove this risk through using a stairlift, giving you more confidence, and putting the minds of your loved ones at ease.

Less Stress

It is not just the risk of injury itself which can be a problem when moving up and down the stairs, but also the stresses which this activity will put on the body. When you have a mobility issue, your body will naturally use other muscles and joints in the body to compensate for the area which is struggling, and this only serves to put undue stress on areas of the body which are not used to it. Climbing stairs is an effort which requires much strength for those with mobility issues, and it could have painful consequences.

More Action

You will be amazed at how many people put off going up or down stairs because of the difficulty which is involved, and the tiredness that they feel afterwards. Many people will go upstairs to collect something and then leave it a long time before coming back down, because they feel tired. When you have a stairlift installed, this will be a thing of the past as you will feel happy to whizz up and down the stairs whenever you see fit.

Having mobility issues is tough enough, why not make your life easier with a stair lift?